Gross Domestic Product per capita
The gross domestic product or GDP is a way of measuring the size of a region's economy. It is usually normalized by dividing by capita. It is often compared with the purchasing power parity (PPP) of the currency relative to the US$.
Human Development Index (HDI)
The UNDP Human Development Index report of 2006 was compiled on data from 2004 and covered 175 UN member countries (out of 192). It is a comparative measure of life expectancy, literacy, education, and standards of living for countries worldwide. More specifically:
- A long and healthy life, as measured by life expectancy at birth
- Knowledge, as measured by the adult literacy rate (with two-thirds weight) and the combined primary, secondary and tertiary gross enrolment ratio (with one-third weight)
- A decent standard of living, as measured by GDP per capita (PPP US$).
It is a standard means of measuring well-being, especially child welfare. It is used to distinguish whether the country is a developed, a developing, or an under-developed country, and also to measure the impact of economic policies on quality of life. The index was developed in 1990 by Pakistani economist Mahbub ul Haq.
Digital Access Index (DAI)
The Digital Access Index (DAI) has data from 1995 to 2003. It combines eight variables, covering five areas, to provide an overall country score. The areas are availability of infrastructure, affordability of access, educational level, quality of ICT services, and Internet usage. The results of the Index point to potential stumbling blocks in ICT adoption and can help countries identify their relative strengths and weaknesses.
Digital Opportunity Index (DOI)
In 2006 the ITU submitted the Digital Opportunity Index report for 180 economies worldwide. The Index monitors the mobile communications that promise to bridge the digital divide in many parts of the world, as well as more recent technologies such as broadband and mobile Internet access.
Network Readiness Index (NRI)
The Network Readiness Index (NRI) was used in the World Economic Forum's Global Information Technology Report 2007-2007. It covers about 120 countries. It rests on three main subindexes:
- the presence of an ICT-conducive environment in a given country by assessing a number of features of the broad business environment, some regulatory aspects, and the soft and hard infrastructure for ICT;
- the level of ICT readiness and propensity of the three main national stakeholders---individuals, the business sector, and the government; and
- the actual use of ICT by the above three stakeholders.
Technology Achievement Index (TAI)
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) introduced the Technology Achievement Index (TAI) in 2001 to reflects a country's capacity to participate in the technological innovations of the network age. It contains data from 1995-1000 andf covers 72 countries. The TAI aims to capture how well a country is creating and diffusing technology and building a human skill base. It includes the following dimensions: Creation of technology (e.g. patents, royalty receipts); diffusion of recent innovations (Internet hosts/capita, high & medium tech exports as share of all exports); Diffusion of old innovations (log phones/capita, log of electric consumption/capita); Human skills (mean years of schooling, gross enrollment in tertiary level in science, math & engineering).
Maps
Some maps of the index values are seen below